Update

It's been another busy season in our lives! So here's a quick update.

Our church has an amazing VBS that we love to help out with and attend each year. Jonah was incredible - Addie's first musical experience was fun for us all - she ooed and ahhed over everything!

Addie celebrated her 2nd birthday a few weeks ago! Two years have flown by. She is such a precious, affectionate and funny kid. It's hard to imagine what our world was like 2 years ago before she came.

Emma and Hayley had lots of fun "helping" her blow out her candles.









Addie didn't eat a single bite of cake, but I think she got as much icing as humanly possible off her piece of birthday cake (a girl after her Aunt Chesley's heart!)














My mom took some great pictures while she was here - this was our favorite of Addie. What a big girl!













My sister and her sweet baby Canon spent a whole week with us around Addie's birthday! Canon reminded me of how precious a new one is, and got me excited about baby #3. I couldn't get enough of him, and I wasn't ready for them to leave - Holly and I have that kind of rare friendship where you never get tired of each other. I wish she lived closer!







We had a wonderful, relaxing 4th of July with some friends, just cooking out, swimming and watching fireworks from our backyard. Emma and her buddies kept pronouncing, "I saw a shooting star!" (roman candles our neighbor was lighting off). And Addie was hilarious with the "fi-yi-wuks" as she called them! She felt a need to comment on each one, "ooh- yellow! Wow! So Pitty! Puple Fiyiwuk!" I think she talked the entire 20-30 minutes of the show, and then at the end said, "I night night" and laid down on a blanket on the lawn. 10:00 was pushing it for her.














Addie and Emma were all over their baby cousin. The covered him with kisses and were dying to hold him all the time. It was definitely a vision of things to come...two little mommies for their new sibling!







I've had a lot of little things running through my mind about my girls that I want to record before I forget them! Plus, they're driving me a little crazy today and I think it would be good to meditate on their positive points for a little while :).



Emma:

• This kid has a serious coloring addiction. She colors pictures for Daddy, the new baby and Addie (her bathroom door is covered in pictures Emma taped on for her), but mostly she colors them for me. So cute - they all say "To Mom, From Emma (only recently did we get her to realize it is "from" not "form"). I think I recieve an average of about 10 per day.
  
• She is really anticipating her baby brother or sister (we find out next week!). She gives the baby hugs and kisses multiple times a day and feels that any prayer that does not cover the baby is incomplete.


• Emma is a little fish this summer! Her latest game in the pool is to throw toys to the bottom and go down and see how many she can collect at once. Our one challenge is to get her to stop and rest and catch her breath for a while! It's nice having at least one child who can swim pretty well.
• As always, Emma loves to sing. I think she's just getting bigger and louder. In the car her favorite music is the Veggie Tales Worship CD. She can seriously belt those tunes out! We often have to ask her to keep it down so we can have rational thoughts.
• Recently we had a scare involving tilapia, hives, swollen lips, restricted breathing and an eventual trip to the ER in an ambulance. We have never dealt with any allergic reactions in our family so this was a scary first. Emma handled it very well and thought the ambulance was pretty cool. Mom & Dad thought otherwise and we hope its the last trip!
  

Addie:

• Her language is developing really well now - a relief for us all. Her favorite words to say are "socca ball" (soccer ball - no idea why, but she will repeat this phrase over & over), "I selp" (myself), "mine," and of course, "no" which she mastered a long time ago. We are working on the automatic "please" and "thank you" with her. She is really good about saying "tanks," but for some reason she thinks that if she just makes her words a little more high pitch that will suffice for "please".


• Every time we asked what she wanted for her birthday she would say, "um, take" (cake). It's all about the birthday cake!


• She has finally connected that there is a baby in my tummy, or at least that when we ask her where the baby is, she should point to my belly. Of course she has also started staring at things on her plate and saying, "Baby, sad baby". Who knows?


• Addie has to be one of the most affectionate kids I know. She loves to hug and kiss and will hand these out to anyone who will take them! Recently she has tried to kiss two little friends with mixed results - I think she doesn't quite understand that not everyone is a kisser! We love that she is a cuddler and are trying to soak it all up.

There are so many other cute things that I know crossed my mind and that now are probably gone forever! I'm trying to be better at this, mostly for my own memory's sake. We'll see how that goes :). Blessings everyone!